One of Hong Kong’s largest, and most enduring business institutions has been laid low by a reckless brat from one of Hong Kong’s most powerful families. About a year ago, Richard Li acquired Hong Kong Telecom, and proceeded to destroy over US$20 billion of...
POLITICS
Friendship is Selfish
Cicero wrote that, “There is nothing more fatal to friendship than the greed of gain.” Although a popular sentiment, it’s a deeply mistaken one. Think about the friends you have. Try to make yourself aware of what you enjoy about those friends...
In Defense of David Horowitz’s Anti-Reparations Ad: A Feeling Is Not an Argument
Over the past two weeks, college students have been denouncing the publication of an ad that opposes “reparations” to blacks in America. Angry Duke students staged a sit-in to demand an apology by the school’s newspaper, the Chronicle, for running...
The Telecommunications Industry Lives
Every time I hear somebody deliver a eulogy for the telecommunications industry, I think of a wonderful analogy that makes me feel better. The argument that the telecommunications industry is dead goes something like this: There is enough capacity in long haul fiber...
John McCain, Traitor
It is time to put the John McCain myth to rest. For years, the national media and a gullible grass-roots following have glorified McCain as a man of integrity who deals in “straight talk.” They have promoted his image as a hero who fought bravely for his...
The War On Merit
America faces a serious threat. It comes from a war being fought within our own borders. The war is on merit, and it may ultimately decide the fate of our society. One place this war is being fought, and lost, is in the U.S. Army. The losers are the Army Rangers, the...
Private Lands and Private Businesses Are Not Public Property
Congress and the Bush administration are looking for ways to reverse President Clinton’s barrage of executive orders from his final months of office. The former president, for example, arbitrarily designated millions of acres of private lands as public property,...
Cultural Bias and the SAT
Ever since racial quotas in college admissions were banned by Proposition 209 in California and by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas, academics and politicians have been racking their brains to come up with something that would allow quotas to continue under...
Compassionate Liberalism: The Senate’s Charity Case
Now we know which political party is truly the Party of the Little People. Noble Senate Democrats have come to the aid of a downtrodden woman. They are furiously passing the plate for this destitute soul, pulling out all the stops to help her get back on her feet. Who...
‘Civil Rights’ Versus Sports Teams Named After Indians
It is no secret that the civil rights establishment has become a parody of what was once a courageous army for racial dignity and fairness. There was a time when those who claimed to fight against prejudice confronted genuinely terrible injustice: segregated public...
Conference Report: NYU’s “ASIA: Restructuring in Action”
Last week I attended a full-day business conference “ASIA: Restructuring in Action,” at NYU’s Stern School of Business. There, professors and industry experts met to discuss how post-crisis Asia was progressing. We discussed macroeconomic trends, the...
Humorless at Harvard: The Bastion of Academic Slavery
A young Harvard undergrad enraged the campus emperors of political correctness this week when he tried to tickle their funny bones. Justin Fong, a writer for the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, quickly discovered that the emperors have no clothes, no spine, and...
Stock Market: Reasons for Hope and Worry
The date was Dec. 5, 1996. The scene was the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel. The speaker was Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, keeper of the nation’s money. He had been droning on for 45 minutes with an address on the 83-year...
Hollywood’s Celebrity Bush Bashers
Get ready for the red-carpet parade of egos. It’s Oscar time again. Millions will tune in this weekend to gawk and swoon as the world’s most famous actors and actresses celebrate their favorite subject — themselves. As the night of a thousand stars...
“Conserving” Electricity
Has anyone ever pleaded with you not to buy a Rolls Royce? The argument might go like this: So much expensive materials and so many man-hours of highly-skilled hand labor go into producing a Rolls Royce that, if everyone had one, it would drain so many resources and...
It’s A Great Day For Investing
The date was Dec. 5, 1996. The scene was the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel. The speaker was Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, keeper of the nation’s money. He had been droning on for 45 minutes with an address on the 83-year...
Criminal vs. Immoral
Q: What is the difference between what is “immoral” and what is “criminal”? Isn’t something criminal, so long as it’s objectively judged, also immoral? A: If something is rationally judged criminal, then by definition it’s...
The Catch-22 of U.S. Trade
In his recent testimony before Congress, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick painted an attractive portrait of free nations “bound together by free trade.” But it is a portrait marred by a little-noticed Catch-22 of U.S. trade law that hurts...
Storm Troopers Vs. Free Speech
Despite media proclamations of “the public’s right to know” and frequent invocations of the First Amendment, there has been a deafening silence from the national media over the storm trooper tactics used on college campuses against student newspapers...
Public Citizen’s Hit And Hide Attack On Bush’s Regulatory Czar
Barely moments after the Bush White House announced their decision to appoint a respected Harvard researcher to be the administration’s regulatory czar at the Office of Management and Budget, the left-wing advocacy group Public Citizen produced a 130-page hit...
Price Controls and the California Blackouts: An Old Problem Returns
The last time so many people were as bedeviled as the people of California are today by electrical blackouts was back in 1979, when motorists in cities across the country were lined up for hours at filling stations, waiting to get gas. Both shortages had the same...
Rolling Blackouts Hit San Diego: Brothers, You Asked For It!
“State power managers ordered rolling blackouts across California for a second straight day Tuesday, cutting off more than 125,000 customers as demand for electricity again exceeded supply. . . . The blackouts Monday struck without warning, coming in two waves...
Bush Should End the Clinton Sponsored Appeasement of China
President Bush meets today with Qian Qichen, China’s deputy prime minister and the first senior Beijing official to visit the White House since the new administration began. Uppermost on Qian’s agenda is the question of arms for Taiwan, which he calls...
The Australian Dollar is Down Under
The Australian Dollar, while recently sinking to 19-year lows, doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of attention. In fact, the currency has never had the sort of impact on global currency markets as the Yen, the Euro, or the Pound, and even currencies like...
Why California’s Restructuring Failed
Electricity restructuring is a complicated process, in California and across the country. As California faces rolling blackouts and soaring energy prices, the consensus is growing among political activists that restructuring may have been a mistake. Particularly...
Airline Employees Should Be Free To Strike
President Bush has dictated that airline employees may not go on strike for at least two months, and maybe not at all. People like me, who have travel plans next month, should be relieved. Right? Wrong. Why the ingratitude? As much as I want to reach my destination...
Forced to Volunteer
THE TERM “LIBERAL” originally referred politically to those who wanted to liberate people — mainly from the oppressive power of government. That is what it still means in various European countries or in Australia and New Zealand. It is the American...
The Secret Behind Alan Greenspan’s Surprise FED Rate Cut
The Fed’s surprise 50 basis point cut in the fed funds rate yesterday took the markets — and me — completely by surprise. And yet the stock market’s reaction was strangely muted. Don’t get me wrong: yesterday was great. But the rate cut...
Campaign Finance Reform: Wrong Target
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz., makes a lot of political hay portraying himself as the hero for campaign finance reform and against influence-peddling. He’s for restrictions on the “soft money” millions that flow into the campaign coffers of the...
America’s “Soft-Hearted,” Soft-Headed Foreign Policy
Former President Clinton has just received another fitting addition to his legacy. Two years ago, he sent U.S. troops to Kosovo to protect ethnic Albanians against attacks by Serbia. Now our troops are stuck trying to protect Macedonia against attacks by these very...
The Fallacy of America’s Education “System”
Q: How would you correct the problem of education in this country if you had complete control of the system? A: I would not seek “complete control of the system.” Nor do I — or anyone else (be it George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, the NEA, or whomever)...
The Death of Jesse Dirkhising
“Jesse slowly suffocated and died.” A jury heard those chilling words this week in the opening statement of a little-noticed Arkansas trial. A mother heard those heartbreaking words spoken about her 13-year-old son, Jesse Dirkhising, whom prosecutors say...
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